The Best Pea Trellis Designs For Container Gardening

Pea trellis containers can be long rectangular boxes

Container gardening is ideal for porch gardens and homes with small back yards, as it allows you to get the most use out of your living space. Container pea trellises add a neat, sophisticated, yet rustic look to any porch garden. Tall climbing pea varieties thrive when they are given slender surfaces to climb on, such as chicken wire or twine. Allow the peas to grow their full height and get the most bounty from your pea plants come harvest time with a pea trellis.

Chicken Wire Trellis

The simplest and cheapest pea trellis is the chicken wire trellis. Chicken wire consists of pieces of wire woven together to form hexagon shapes. Peas wrap their tendrils around the slender chicken wire while they climb up it. Chicken wire trellises make good use of small spaces, as the peas can grow on either side of the wire. Insert three even spaced 48-inch tomato stakes in a straight line into your container. Wrap chicken wire all the way around all tomato stakes and attach the wire to the stakes with chicken wire fasteners. Or you can use wooden stakes and staple the chicken wire to them. You can even "up-cycle" an old small wooden window frame, with glass removed, by turning it into a chicken wire pea trellis. Bury the bottom of the window frame into the container with gardening soil, wrap the chicken wire around it and then plant your peas.

Twine Trellis

Place two 48-inch long tomato stakes in a large square container parallel to each other and centered on the sides. Tie a piece of twine to both stakes so that the twine spans horizontally across the container. Add four to six even spaced pieces of twine to the stakes. When the peas start to grow, tie a long piece of twine onto the top horizontal twine piece to hang vertically down towards a pea plant, leaving a 2-inch space between the end of the twine and the pea plant. Tie a vertical piece of twine for each pea plant onto the top horizontal row. When the peas begin to grow and climb up the vertical twine piece, they will also attach tendrils to the horizontal twine pieces.

Container Wall Trellis

If you live in an area that has cool nights, you may want to make a wall trellis. Brick wall is useful in cool areas as it heats up during the day and remains warm throughout the night, when peas do the majority of their growing. Attach a plastic net to the brick wall with masonry anchors. Pull the net as taut as possible when you install it to prevent sagging, as peas can get a little bit heavy as they grow. Use a long square porch or window container to plant the peas in and plant them close to one long side. Set the pea side of the container against the wall. The peas will grow up to reach the net and then will climb up it.

Branch Trellis

Make an environmentally friendly container pea trellis with tree branches. A fully covered branch trellis resembles a cone shaped topiary and is a beautiful addition to any container garden. Take four 32-inch long tree branches that have a lot of thin side branching, such as beech, birch or blueberry bush branches, and insert them around the perimeter of a large pot filled with soil. Inset smaller thin branches with tiny twigs between the 32-inch long tree branches and inter-weave them together. Hold the tops of the 32-inch long branches together and tie them tightly with a piece of twine. If the branch trellis leans, adjust the position of the branches to make the structure stand straight up. Plant the peas close to the branches so that they can climb up them and wrap their tendrils around the slender twigs of the branches.